Links: KDevelop 4.0.1, GNOME 3...
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2010-07-24 07:32:48 UTC
- Modified: 2010-07-24 07:33:50 UTC
Summary: GNU/Linux news roundup
GNU/Linux
The Playstation 3 slim is not just a gaming console, but also a powerful PC besides the styled layout that the playstation 3 has. Everybody generally use the console for it?s main objective, to perform video games, with out realizing how significantly more the console can offer them . With Linux on Playstation 3 you can do almost everything a computer can do and then some with your Ps3. Not to mention installing Linux system on a Playstation 3 is very effortless. Here are some of the benefits linked with setting up Linux system on a Playstation 3 slim.
This is an old favorite of mine. Here is the problem, switching desktops on a Linux machine with or without compiz is not intuitive. Why? because it is related to some window keys Ctrl+Alt+Right or Left Arrow, it is a secondary menu, or it depends on the mouse being at the corner of the window.
Defragmenting the hard drive. It's hard to believe that even Windows 7, the latest operating system from Microsoft, is still prone to this problem. The NTFS filesystem (used by Windows NT and up) has other quirks, but it seems to slowly get fragmented and requires defragmenting from time to time. This process can take a long time depending on your hardware, and no doubtedly has to happen when you are not using your computer. It's more like a band-aid to the problem, whereas Linux solves the problem up front by not even allowing fragmenting to happen at all. This has been the case since the ext3 filesystem was first used for Linux, and is still the case today with the ext4 filesystem. To quote the Linux System Administrator Guide: "Modern Linux filesystem(s) keep fragmentation at a minimum by keeping all blocks in a file close together, even if they can't be stored in consecutive sectors. Some filesystems, like ext3, effectively allocate the free block that is nearest to other blocks in a file. Therefore it is not necessary to worry about fragmentation in a Linux system.". Again, this is brilliant.
So let's look at two of the most common operating systems used today used in datacenters and on server systems. On one hand, Windows and the other Linux.
Windows by nature has more downtime per system, because Microsoft releases patches that require frequent rebooting. Windows patches are scheduled to be released on the second Tuesday of each month, so at a minimum once per month Windows systems will need to reboot. Sometimes, patches are released even more frequently, depending on the severity. Windows just can't activate a majority of software updates without rebooting the entire system.
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Server
- Over two thirds (29 out of 42) of the most reliable hosting companies use Linux (would they use GNU along with it?)
- 14.2% use BSD (FreeBSD to be more precise)
- A little less than 10% use Windows
- 3 out of 42 are a big question mark
The z196 can be configured to include up to 80 specialty engines to further reduce costs and increase performance including the System z Application Assist Processor (zAAP) for integrating Java workloads with core business applications, the System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) designed to help free-up computing capacity and lower IT costs, and the Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) to optimize Linux workloads running on the mainframe, IBM said in its press release.
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Graphics Stack
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Applications
Why do I care about this so much? Because I have music playing whenever I'm using this computer, and when you add up work plus free time, I'm at this computer 8-10 hours per day. Music keeps me sane during multi-hour debug sessions. Music is an integral part of my life, and a music app is an integral part of playing music.
It's very important to me that the programs and tools I use all day are comfortable. Otherwise I become cranky. If you were a carpenter, would you want to use a hammer with a wobbly handle all day? I'm a programmer, and I want to use comfortable computer programs.
Clementine is very comfortable.
A library management system (also known as an integrated library system) is an automated resource planning system which enables a library to operate efficiently, freeing staff from unnecessary tasks. This type of software typically offers functionality such as cataloging, searching, reporting, acquisitions, library circulation and management embodied into a central system.
A student information system (also known as a student management system or school management system) is computer software for educational institutions to manage student data.
We continue our Linuxables series on the Linux text editor. As you might have noticed, this is one of those topics that breed much contempt. If you talk about vi, you must give equal time to emacs. If you talk about Kate, you best talk about Gedit. And that is precisely where we are - Gedit (although we have yet to talk about Kate, that comes next week).
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By default Gedit will be installed on a GNOME desktop.
GSmartControl is a really useful Linux app to check the health of your hard disk drive. GSmartControl is basically a graphical user interface for smartctl, which is a tool for querying and controlling SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) data on modern hard disk drives. Only ATA drives including both PATA and SATA are supported for now.
Ear Candy Automatically Fades and Raises Volume Levels in LinuxLinux only: Free utility Ear Candy makes your sound system smarter. If you're listening to music and a Skype call comes in, or you load a YouTube video, Ear Candy gently lowers your music volume to let the other sounds through.
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Proprietary
More than two years after version 1.0 arrived and about one month behind schedule, the Wine Project development team have released version 1.2 of their Windows API implementation. Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) is free open source software that allows users to run Windows applications on Linux and Unix by providing its own native replacements for Windows DLLs. According to Wine Project leader Alexandre Julliard, Wine 1.2 represents more than 23,000 changes, including over 3,000 bug fixes, and includes a number of improvements and new features.
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Instructionals
Retouching your photos in digiKam is radically different from how it works in Aperture. In digiKam, you first have to open the image Editor. In the image Editor, you can select from the top menu the different manipulations that you apply to your photo. You pick one manipulation that you want to do and on the right side of the window, the controls for this particular manipulation appear. Here you can adjust the settings. For some tools, the changes are displayed straight away, for the more computing extensive tools you have to press the “try” button to see the effect. DigiKam has made it easy to check what the effect of the adjustment is going to be: there are four split screens available and there is a mouse over option available that shows the original or the adjusted photo depending on where your mouse is. You can select the behaviour of the Image Editor on the bottom right corner. In that same corner, you also find the apply button, which probably does not need any explanation!
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Desktop Environments
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K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)
I’m happy to announce the availability of our first patch level release for KDevelop 4.
Well, here comes a good one I think. As I was talking to some people on the KDE IRC channel yesterday, there was a comment made about a possible way to orient new KDE users on how to use the desktop. However, I believe that users should be left clues to discover their desktop on their own. There should not be an intro popup or anything like that. Ponder about this for a moment.
Today, the KOffice team presents a contest to create great KPresenter slide templates, offering t-shirts for the winners and of course inclusion in the next KPresenter releases for all good submissions. Read on for information on the contest!
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GNOME Desktop
This September, a new desktop will be unveiled to the world in the form of GNOME 3. This desktop will change the way people view, work with, and think of the desktop. It's different, it's intuitive, and it follows the current evolution of what the desktop should be. But best of all, it's all about Linux.
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I have owned a Victorinox USB flash drive for several years now - long enough that it is only a 512MB unit, and it was considered "typical" at the time that I got it. I recently decided it was time to get a new one with a capacity more typical by today's standards. My basic selection criteria was very simple - besides the capacity, it must not have any knife or scissors which would cause me problems when taking it in my backpack on commercial flights.
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Reviews
Parted Magic is a Slackware-based Linux distro which is made for the sole purpose of partitioning hard disks. Parted Magic comes with tools like GParted, TestDisk, fdisk etc. The latest release, Parted Magic 0.5 was released yesterday and it includes Linux kernel 2.6.34.1, GParted 0.6.1 etc.
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New Releases
After several years of development, German T2 creator Rene Rebe has announced the release of version 8.0 of his cross compiling Linux distribution System Development Environment (SDE), T2 SDE. According to Rebe, the latest release includes more than 10,000 Subversion revisions, hundreds of new packages, performance improvements and several new features.
The Sabayon Linux team has now released two new flavours of the Gentoo-based Linux distro packed with alternative desktop environments for those who prefer them or have slower computers. The Sabayon 5.3 XFCE and Sabayon 5.3 LXDE ‘spins’ are more experimental in nature than the regular release though they are considered stable enough for regular use. This is just the first step, more spins are planned, and these two will continue to evolve until they reach a more mature state.
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Canonical/Ubuntu
Flavours and Variants
Some love Gnome, others love KDE, for me it’s XFCE all the way. When I jumped on the Ubuntu bandwagon several years ago it was only natural that I’d use Xubuntu.
If you’re looking for a great KDE distribution built on Ubuntu packages, Linux Mint KDE is the one to get. Forget Kubuntu, Mint does everything it does and more. In fact, it’s everything Kubuntu used to be. By itself, Mint’s KDE edition shines with custom tools, a customized appearance, and attention to detail at just about every turn. Distributions like this one make it harder for me to choose a single distro to stick with, as there are many great ones out there to try out.
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Overall: 5/5 (Great!)
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Phones
I caught an excellent presentation by Aaron Williamson from the Software Freedom Law center here at OSCON yesterday examining why smartphones built on open source software aren’t as open as they possibly could be. What Williams talked about was often eye opening, though there were a few points I found myself disagreeing with him on.
He started the presentation by talking about Motorola’s Droid X and the controversy that was stirred up when hacking enthusiasts discovered that Motorola had implemented an encrypted boot loader that forced the device to boot into a “recovery” mode in the event a custom ROM was detected on the device. While this was shocking (and even infuriating) to some, The only thing setting Motorola apart from the other Android OEMS in this case is that they’re actually enforcing the restrictions mandated by the OS maker.
Mobile photography could get a shot in the arm thanks to the combined efforts of Stanford University researchers and Nokia Research, who have pushed a new open-source digital photography platform out the door. FCam – or “Frankencamera” – is initially available for the Nokia N900, and unlocks high-end functionality like RAW image capture, full manual controls and low-light imagery through combining multiple shots of varying ISO and exposure settings.
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Android
In two reports filed from this week's OSCON conference, The Register says that Google will open Android's internal development kit to contributors, and that Linux maintainers are holding tough in negotiating with the search giant regarding Android's readmission to the kernel. Meanwhile, Linux 2.6.35 RC6 was released, featuring enhancements to network scalability, memory management, and sleep-wait detection.
Interest levels in syncing music collections have notched up a bit of late with the introduction of a plethora of new Android-based super phones. That is, unless you happen to be one of those owners with a large quantity of digital music encumbered by digital rights management (DRM) better known as copy protection. In that case, you might want to do some research into converting said digital files into a more portable format. Meanwhile, for the rest, with media ready to load up on a new cool phone, we'll take a look at Linux options.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- In Norway, Android/Linux Has Just Hit All-Time High (First Time Since 2020), GNU/Linux Already Very Prevalent
- Despite its small population size, Norway gave us Qt and many other things
- Microsoft's Mass Layoffs Very Wide-Ranging, Media Focused on Gaming Though Microsoft Mass-Firing Lawyers and "AI" Staff (Contradicting Its Supposed "Investment" in "AI")
- Microsoft plans to fire almost half a thousand people in legal roles
- 2012 Article About the Free Software Foundation Blasting Canonical/Ubuntu Over Adoption of "Secure" Boot (Microsoft's Remote Control Over GNU/Linux Since PCs' Power-on)
- By Katherine Noyes (article has since then became 404, not found)
- Debian Can Dump Blind Users Because I am Not Blind
- the sort of mentality we're up against
- The European Patent Office Cannot Attract Proficient Patent Examiners Who Master Their Domain
- They are enablers and facilitators of corruption
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- Gemini Links 19/07/2025: Git For Authors and Filtered Antenna
- Links for the day
- UEFI 'Secure' Boot Abuses by Microsoft to be Brought Up in the UK High Court in 3 Months
- we'll seek compensation
- Russia Set to Ban Facebook?
- If WhatsApp is made to "leave", that means Facebook or "Meta".
- Next Year It'll Be Half a Decade Since the Fall of Freenode (and IRC is Still Doing OK)
- Our IRC network is still accessible using the exact same software that ran in Windows 3.x
- Lupa Will Soon Know of 3,100+ Active Gemini Capsules
- And some people in the "Small Web" try to tell us that Gemini is dying?
- The Slopfarms Are Taking Real News Articles and Replacing Them With Lies Generated by Machines
- Bluntly speaking, Fagioli is nothing short of an online scammer
- Links 19/07/2025: Techtarget to Cull 10% of Staff, New Threats to Free Press in the US (Home of Dangerous and Violent Stranglers From Microsoft)
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 19/07/2025: "Climate Justice” and Forking Programs
- Links for the day
- What Wayland and Microsoft/IBM systemd Have in Common
- focus on what IBM (Red Hat) is pushing while running over critics.
- Linux Already Has About 60% of the "Market"
- "When mentioning the client side," opines an associate, "it is essential to recite the list of other markets where Microsoft is negligible or a no-show. It is repetitive to do so, but it needs saying -- often."
- Finland (and NATO) Must Move to GNU/Linux and Dump Microsoft Even Faster
- "Microsoft is not a technology problem, it is a staffing problem."
- The Microsofters We Sued Helped Microsoft Make GNU/Linux 'Expire' This Year
- "Linux and Secure Boot certificate expiration"
- linuxconfig.org Joins linuxtechlab.com and Others, Becomes a Slopfarm With Fake Linux 'Articles' (LLM Slop)
- They contain "linux" in their domain names, but they are just slopfarms
- Links 19/07/2025: Microsoft Cuts in China and Wall Street Journal Sued for Reporting on Jeffrey Epstein
- Links for the day
- Fascistic Policies Got 'Normalised' in 'Public Office'. Let's Not Let the Same Happen in 'Tech'.
- Political discourse typically guides what's "normal" and what "good citizens" should believe/feel
- Yes, Your Mastodon Instance Will Also Shut Down
- Few people run a one-person instance in the Fediverse
- The Demise of GAFAM Necessitates Greater and Broader Awareness
- Morale at Microsoft is really bad
- Free Software Foundation Reaches 75% of Funding Goal
- Not bad for this "Fosschild"
- Slopwatch: 7 New Examples of Fake 'Linux' Slop Pieces (Plagiarism With Misinformation)
- Serial Sloppers need to be shunned
- Links 19/07/2025: Kapo-berg Settles, Software Patents Challenged
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 18, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, July 18, 2025
- Links 18/07/2025: Peace With PKK and Connie Francis Dies
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 18/07/2025: Alhena 5.1.8 and Bornhack 2025
- Links for the day
- How to Top Up a "Limited Liability" With Even More Limitations (Dodging Accountability in the UK)
- Some people call it a "shell game". Sometimes it's done for tax evasion purposes.
- Free Software Foundation, Inc. (FSF) Inches Towards 75% of Fund-Raising Target
- Will the cutoff date be extended again?
- Gemini Space (or Geminispace) Grows, But Usage of Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Drops Further
- Ideally, all Gemini capsules should use self-signed certificates
- Links 18/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs in Activision, The New Stack (Sponsored by Microsoft) Complains About Openwashing
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 18/07/2025: OCC25 Gnus for Reading Usenet and RSS Feeds, Small Web Updates
- Links for the day
- [Meme] 9AM Meeting at Brett Wilson LLP
- Brett Wilson LLP in space
- Listing as Staff People Who Left the Company More Than Six Years Earlier
- There are apparently no laws against that
- Brian Fagioli Shovels Up LLM Slop (Plagiarism) Onto Slashdot, Then Uses Slashdot for Affirmation or as Badge of Honour
- Notice how some of his latest slop is presented ("as featured on Slashdot")
- Social Control Media Productivity
- Snapping photos of the bone
- The Law Firm SLAPPing Us For the Microsofters Lost 72% of Its Tangible Assets in the Past Year, According to Its Own Reports
- That might help explain why they're willing to tolerate serial stranglers from Microsoft as clients
- Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity.com Slopfarm and Slopfarms Propped Up by Google News
- "As LLM slop is foisted onto the WWW in place of knowledge and real content, it now gets ingested and processed by other LLMs, creating a sort of ouroboros of crap."
- Links 18/07/2025: Weather Events and Health Hazards
- Links for the day
- Microsoft's All-Time Low in Finland
- Microsoft is in a freefall
- Security: Shane Wegner & Debian statement of incompetence
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 17, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, July 17, 2025
- Gemini Links 17/07/2025: "Goodreads for Gemini" and Defence of "The Small Web"
- Links for the day
- Links 17/07/2025: Anger and Morale Issues at Microsoft, Wars and Conflicts Get Digital
- Links for the day
- CALEA / CALEA2 is the Real Problem, Not Chinese Operatives Exploiting CALEA / CALEA2 (as Any Other Nation Can)
- CALEA / CALEA2 is more of a front door than a back door
- 99.99% Uptime in First Half of 2025
- Since January there was only one noticeable outage
- Nils Torvalds and Anna "Mikke" Torvalds (née Törnqvis) Hopefully Use GNU/Linux by Now
- "Torvalds Family Uses Windows, Not Linus’ Linux"
- Attack of the Slopfarms
- FUD-amplifying bots with slop images, slop text (LLM slop)
- When People Call a Best/Close Friend of Bill Gates a "Serial Rapist"
- Good thing that the Linux Foundation keeps the "Linux" trademark ("Linux Mark") clean
- Not My Problem, I Don't Care
- Context/inspiration: Martin Niemöller
- Honest Journalism About the European Patent Office Ceased to Exist After SLAPPs and Bribes to the Media
- The EPO is basically a Mafia
- Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia, Shutdown in Pakistan, What Next?
- It seems possible that in 2025 alone Microsoft will have laid off over 50,000 workers
- Life Became Simpler When I Stopped Driving and I Don't Miss Driving When I See "Modern" Cars
- Gee, wonder why car sales have plummeted...
- Why I Believe Brett Wilson LLP and Its Microsoft Clients Are All Toast
- So far our legal strategy has worked perfectly
- EPO Jobs Are Very Toxic and Bad for One's Health
- Health first, not monopolies
- Response to Ryo Suwito Regarding the Four Freedoms
- the point of life isn't to make more money
- Microsoft's Morale Circling Down the Drain
- Or gutter, toilet etc.
- What Matters More Than "Market Share"
- The goal is freedom, not "market share"
- Tech Used to be Fun. To Many of Us It's Still Fun.
- You can just watch it from afar and make fun of it all
- Links 17/07/2025: "Blog Identity Crisis" and Openwashing by Nvidia
- Links for the day
- Greffiers and the US Attorney of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft
- The lawsuit can help expose extensive corruption in the American court system as well
- Credit Suisse collapse obfuscated Parreaux, Thiébaud & Partners scandal
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- The People Who Promoted systemd in Debian Also Promote Wayland
- This is not politics
- UK Media Under Threat: Cannot Report on Data Breach, Cannot Report on Microsoft Staff Strangling Women
- The story of super injunction (in the British media this week, years late)
- Victims of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Alex Balabhadra Graveley, Wanted to Sue Him But Lacked the Funds (He Attacked Their Finances)
- Having spoken to victims of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft
- Links 17/07/2025: Science, Hardware, and Censorship
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 17/07/2025: Staying in the "Small Web" and Back on ICQ
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 16, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, July 16, 2025